{"id":7765,"date":"2012-09-24T22:01:40","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T05:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept12\/?p=7765"},"modified":"2012-09-25T08:49:18","modified_gmt":"2012-09-25T15:49:18","slug":"biography-of-john-baker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept12\/2012\/09\/24\/biography-of-john-baker\/","title":{"rendered":"Biography of John Baker"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

John Baker is the founder and CEO of Desire2Learn<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Desire2Learn Incorporated, also known as Desire2Learn or D2L was founded in 1999 by John Baker who desired eLearning or a Learning Management System (LMS) that was not available when he was studying systems design engineering in his third year at the University of Waterloo. \u00a0 Baker grew up in Eastern Canada. \u00a0 He moved from Newfoundland to Ontario when he was in Grade Five. \u00a0 Baker did well in school and had thought he might want to become a doctor. \u00a0 His parents suggested instead that he do something more applied or hands-on for his first degree. \u00a0 Baker chose the field of Engineering where Systems Design appealed to him because of the integration of knowledge and design. \u00a0 What sets Baker apart from other entrepreneurs in the realm of education is that he chose to focus on problem finding rather than problem solving. \u00a0 He wanted to find something that he could do differently and make a positive impact on society. \u00a0When faced with a\u00a0ruling of a Texas jury to pay his competitior Blackboard $3.1 million dollars over a patent dispute, Baker remained confident and appealed the decision. \u00a0His company eventually won in 2009. \u00a0 Reinhart, a writer for Communitech writes that Baker’s “willingness to go with his gut and adopt total transparency throughout the case, against the advice of his lawyers, also helped distinguish the young executive as a true entrepreneur”. \u00a0 When asked what qualities saw him through this difficult period, Baker responded with “integrity, openness, hard work, dedication, persistence, [and] passion” (Reinhart, 2012). \u00a0It seems that Baker has been able to grow with his company through the good and the bad.<\/p>\n

Desire2Learn’s leadership team is diverse. \u00a0 Each has a strong background in various areas such as financing, administration, marketing and sales, SaaS, IT, engineering, planning, legal counsel, and services and support. \u00a0 Their biographies include multiple degrees and relavant and extensive work experience with other leading technological companies.<\/p>\n

D2L provides eLearning solutions and develops online LMS for more than 650 institutions in 20 different companies around the world. \u00a0It is a stable and growing company which has been named one of Canada’s Top 50 Small & Medium Employers for 2011. \u00a0D2L markets to K-12, Higher Education, Corporate, and Government enterprises. \u00a0D2L has many different product options including a user friendly LMS, ePortfolios, Analytics, Learning Repository Resources, which can be access through mobile devices and through an open platform. \u00a0 Some of the services it offers are: cloud services, learning and creative services, customer service and support,\u00a0implementation\u00a0and customization, advisory and consulting, and training.<\/p>\n

Personally this analysis has not inspired my own entrepreneurial potential. \u00a0I think some of the reason that this company has been successful is that Baker not only had the creative idea, but also had the ability to build and design it. \u00a0 For myself, I might be able to come up with an idea but would need others to create it. \u00a0 This activity has perked my interest in this company as I see the need for students in K -12 setting to have an E-Portfolio that holds their work throughout the years and includes report cards, etc. \u00a0 I have a familiarity with Blackboard in Higher Education but would love to see what this looks like at the Elementary School Level.<\/p>\n

References:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reinhart, A. February 14th, 2012. \u00a0D2L’s John Baker: Desire To Make A Difference<\/em>. \u00a0 Retrieved September 24th, 2012 from\u00a0https:\/\/www.communitech.ca\/d2ls-john-baker-desire-to-make-a-difference\/3\/<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.desire2learn.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Baker is the founder and CEO of Desire2Learn. Desire2Learn Incorporated, also known as Desire2Learn or D2L was founded in 1999 by John Baker who desired eLearning or a Learning Management System (LMS) that was not available when he was studying systems design engineering in his third year at the University of Waterloo. \u00a0 Baker […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,493564],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-week-04-entrepreneur-bootcamp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7765"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7841,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7765\/revisions\/7841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}